


Requiem

by shobogan



Category: DC Elseworlds, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Canon, Canonical Character Death, Elseworlds, Family, Funeral, Mother-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-24
Updated: 2013-09-24
Packaged: 2017-12-27 12:03:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/978625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shobogan/pseuds/shobogan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another day, another funeral. Barbara and Cassandra comfort each other.</p><p>Set in the JLA: Created Equal world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Requiem

She feels very stiff in crisp black velvet. The skirt is too thin to kick in, the gloves too flimsy to protect anything. The hat is a frilly, useless thing. 

It’s the first funeral Cassandra has ever attended. She isn’t certain how to act, and observing her fellow mourners doesn’t help. Few of them are actually mourning; they’re here out of obligation. She can see the emptiness in the tilt of their heads and the clasp of their hands.

They are all tired, worn by loss that truly matters to them. Everyone here has lost other people. Barbara and Leslie sit with her in the front row; beside her, where Dick and Tim and Alfred should be, is more emptiness.

She feels, suddenly, very alone, more than she did after she ran away. Then, she did not know what it was to have family. Family that cared for her as a person, and not a weapon. She did not know Bruce’s large, gentle hand on her shoulder, or Dick’s kind smile, or Tim’s quiet sincerity, or Alfred’s constant care.

She wondered what it would be like, sometimes, to be a part of it in name - in the written words so important to everyone else. To be known, perhaps, as a Wayne.

Now she will never know.

Suddenly, she feels warmth amidst the cool, stale air; a hand on hers, damp through dark satin. She looks up, and meets Barbara’s eyes.

Cassandra can see the pain she tries so hard to swallow. She has lost her family, too. All they have, now, is each other. 

"I wanted to ask you," Barbara says, and her voice is hoarse from the sobs she let no one hear. "I - we talked about it, and he thought it might compromise - but I don’t care, any more. It’s more important to - "

"To…what?"

Barbara squeezes her hand. “To let you know…that you still have a family, and you always will. I’d like - I’d like to make it official.”

Cassandra feels her eyes widen.

"I would be…a Gordon?"

And, despite the strain of loss on her features, Barbara smiles. “Yes. If you want.”

That, too, Cassandra once mused over, even as she said her last goodbye.

Suddenly, she’s very glad it wasn’t.

"I would."

As Barbara pulls her into an embrace, some of the emptiness fades. Together, they will fill the rest.


End file.
